random posts

Monday, 16 October 2017

Calvert Journal, through the lens of two individuals directly impacted by the prohibition, outlines the infamous Article 253 from Russia’s labour code that makes it illegal for Russian women to pursue a whole tranche of trades, nearly five hundred professions that are focused around manual labour.The vestigial and conflicting ordinance—dating from Soviet times when the state took a preternatural interest in the reproductive powers of its female population and wanted to shield them from back-breaking work and indeed contains provisions to protect women from workplace discrimination—broadly spares women from potentially hazardous work and specifically stipulates that women on the job cannot be made to lift objects heavier that ten kilograms more than twice per hour—among other things—but has translated in modern times as way to exclude women acquiring and making a living through practical skills and becoming a member of a well-paying guild, like plumbing or carpentry or coach-driving. Though many seem contently unaware of the law, it still has wide effects beyond the labour-market with many Russian women growing up without practical repair skills.